Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 3, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2018 | Page 19

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
Thus, adherents argue that it is each woman’s duty to produce as many children
as God grants, proscribing any interference in the process of becoming pregnant.
Even a married woman’s decision to be abstinent is considered interference in
God’s plan. The name Quiverfull may be problematic because while it was originally
adopted by the community itself, many have stopped using it. After several
scandals and a book entitled, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement,
some started calling themselves “Biblical Families.” However, that name can be
confusing because many types of groups, including polygamists, believe they are
living out the image of the biblical family. 4 Thus, regardless of the issues, the name
Quiverfull will be used here.
Unlike the Maya in Guatemala, the very survival of Quiverfull as a community
has not been threatened by war and mass killings of members. And yet,
the perceived threat of violence and need for a spiritual army to combat the state
is an underlying principle of their ideology. They argue that they are culturally
oppressed by a secular society that tempts their children away from biblical values.
They believe the way to fight back against that oppression is to have large numbers
of children that are trained up to resist influences such as women’s liberation (Harrison
and Rowley 2011). One of the messages given to Quiverfull women (among
others) is that Western civilization is at risk of depopulation. This message is communicated
through websites, home-school curricula, churches, and multimedia
presentations. One of the films that is referred to by members of the Quiverfull
movement is Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family. Several reviews
of the film have pointed out its implicit racism and sexism. 5 However, it is
worthwhile to move beyond that and look at it from a human security perspective.
The idea conveyed to women is that if they care about their faith and culture, they
will return to patriarchy and prolific child birthing. The basic argument of the
film is that there will soon not be enough young people on the planet to support
an aging population and maintain a thriving civilization. However, the subtext is
clearly that the solution is to breed the “proper type” of people. For instance, one
speaker notes, “You could say that certain kinds of human beings are on the way to
4 See, for example: http://www.biblicalfamilies.org/.
5 See, for instance, Aviva Galpert, “Demographic Winter: Right Wing Prophecies of White Supremacies
Decline,” Political Research Associates. Accessed August 27, 2016, http://www.politicalresearch.
org/2014/07/03/demographic-winter-right-wing-prophecies-of-white-supremacys-decline/, and
Kathryn Joyce, “Review: Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family,” The Harvard
Divinity Bulletin, Spring 2008.
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